Excel
by North of the North
Summary: In which Mathew goes from having a French parent to having a British one and stays non the wiser about it while the British man fears to wonder over his actions and the Frenchman curses him for it.


France-Francis Bonnefoi

England-Arthur Kirkland

Canada-Mathew Williams

* * *

In the first few years of his life, Mathew was a French farmer's son. And he was very happy with his lot in life. His father, despite his mother's passing away a few years ago, was happy to raise Mathew by himself and he was very kind in the way he did so too. Mathew's father dotted on the boy and his son loved him back in return. And this simple way of living continued for five years until a Londoner came to see them.

This British man, named Arthur Kirkland, came in the fall. And, like many others, his aim was to buy their property.

Francis, Mathew's father, had gone outside to meet him, but that did not stop Mr. Kirkland from seeing the young Mathew, and also seeing how well behaved and how well looking he was.

Francis refused to sell his farm and an argument ensued between the two.

Inside the house, Mathew cowered.

Outside the house, both grown man's thoughts had soured, as all thoughts do in the poisonous stench of an argument, and the man named Arthur's thoughts had taken a decidedly darker turn. Because of that argument, the man convinced himself that if this infernal Frenchman continued to give him his property, then he would just take the Frenchman's son. No boy that well taken care of was unloved.

He would tear this man's heart strings apart.

He failed to see how much more childish this thinking was, and how drastic its actions, were in comparison to how short and unimportant their arguement really was.

He takes the child by ordering his men to go into their home the next night after another argument had brought his blood to boiling and he had ordered his men to steal the boy away.

Faced with his thoughts after he'd sent his men to fetch the boy, Arthur had no idea what he actually hope to accomplish with this.

Then he decided that, like all people faced with their own error and with no idea of why they had done it, he would give himself a reason.

Without a son himself, the reason he came up with was that he was going to raise the boy himself and train him to be a professor at the university he worked at, and that his own father had worked at. He decided to make it a tradition that the Kirkland family would work in the academics. He changed the boy's last name from Bonnefoi to Kirkland.

* * *

He then refused to talk to the boy until the governess he'd hired for him was done and had taught him English to his satisfaction. He never talked to Mathew the entire time he still spoke French. Not a word. They would sit down to supper together, Arthur's servants would wait on them, and by the end of it Mathew was in tears. Nothing he ever said was heard.

It was only when the governess took Arthur aside and told him about how Mathew had learned to speak English fluently did he tell Mathew to come meet him in the parlour, they were going to have a talk. It had been a year since Mathew's kidnapping. He was seven years old then.

"Now, Mathew, I am your father…and I will make sure you excel. I will be superior to that Frenchman you still remember in every way. I will make sure you succeed much more than he could have ever let you grow. Make sure, Mathew. Hey, are you listening to me?" Arthur asked turning Mathew's face away from the window.

The boy nodded.

"Good. Now, as I was saying, make sure you never talk about that man again."

Mathew interrupted him. "Papa-"

"He is no longer your father."

That was the end of the discussion.

In time, Mathew forgot about his papa, he only had a father now. He forgot about where he came from and he forgot his first language.

* * *

Francis, meanwhile, had resorted to drinking and to the despair he had fended off since the death of his wife.

He stayed in this state, ever drunken, failing to live, until he spotted something that gave him hope. Across the street from him the day he received his life back was one of the men that had been with Arthur Kirkland, the man that had taken his child.

Even in his drunken, pathetic, state he still manages to be threatening. And it is enough to get the man to tell him where Arthur is.

He doesn't care that it his destination is all the way across the Channel, kilometres away from the farthest he's ever gone from home. He still goes.

Whilst stalking the university that Arthur used to work at, he sees Mathew and instantly knows him to be his son. But, when he barges into the university and into Mathew's office, he can't understand Mathew and Mathew can't understand him. And then he realizes the truth. He can't be reconciled with his son. Arthur has taught Mathew English and has discouraged any attempt to hold onto his native French, and Francis only knows how to speak French and just a few small phrases in English he desperately learned in order to get there. They have no future together as a family, and definitely no present.

* * *

Francis runs off crying. Mathew stays there in his office looking out the big glass windows and first watches the leaves fall as Francis is running through the university and then watches the man, Francis, run off when he makes it out of the big double doors, still crying, and has stumbled down the steps. Something flashes in his mind as he watches this scene. It's something that he's seen before, in happy dreams that quickly lead to a feeling of loss. Blond hair, wavy blond hair, like the man's blond hair-just like the man's blond hair and a warm smile meant only for him.

Mathew stood up from his desk. "Dad?" He whispered.

Outside, the leaves continued to fall. It truly was a beautiful autumn.

* * *

 **I seem to have particularly bad luck at filling out captcha codes.**


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